Mexico reached its second semi-final in Olympic swimming on Thursday, precisely in the cycle in which there was no national federation.
Amidst abandonment and contempt, Mexican swimming has had in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games their best performance in more than four decades. Two semi-finalists, Miguel de Lara in 200 meters backstroke and Gabriel Castano in the 50-metre freestyle. Two among the world’s top 16, something that had not happened since Moscow 1980.
The history of misery in swimming is not new, just individual efforts to qualify for the Olympic Games and then go out in the first round. But now there was another ingredient: The Mexican Swimming Federation was ignored by its international counterpart, a Stabilization Committee was created that made little progress in resolving the problem and the CONADE withdrew support. If there was nothing before, now they had even less.
And the answer was to look for it on their part, however they could and with whomever they wanted. In addition to individual and family efforts, they managed to scratch something in the sports institutes and an initiative of Nelson Vargas to fund trips. But yes, 80% of Gabriel’s preparation came from his parents.
That idea, presented as a utopian trust to take a Mexican to the best 16 in the world, worked. “The objective has been met, the support was from four businessmen; don’t think there were many,” Nelson Vargas revealed to ESPN.
The four businessmen raised 2.65 million pesos and with that they supported stays and camps abroad, transportation, and travel expenses. In that group, seven athletes were supported and three of them reached Paris: Gabriel Castaño, Miguel de Lara and Jorge Iga.
In Castaño’s case, the Nuevo León sports institute, Melody Falcó, told ESPN that they have been supporting Castaño since before Tokyo 2020 with a scholarship and some trips or reimbursements that he needs. It all adds up in the middle of nowhere.
Regarding support from CONADE, only Miguel de Lara appears with 987 thousand pesos in scholarships and incentives for participating in Central American and Caribbean Gamesor in the Panamerican GamesThat amount was between 2021 and 2023, because this year he no longer received a scholarship, like the rest of the aquatic athletes in Mexico.
“My parents have helped me a lot, without them this dream would not have been achieved,” Castaño told ESPN. “I want to say things that would not have gone well, but they know what they have to do to improve this situation. I am very proud to be part of Mexico in these Olympic Games, but it hurts. The Olympic Committee has been very supportive, but there are other groups that have not done so,” she added.
“All of our semi-finalists, with the exception of Felipe Muñoz, trained at universities in the United States”Vargas acknowledges. “Castano’s talent is impressive. He went to Tokyo, he was in a university that did not have a specialty for sprinters, after Tokyo he retired for a year, came back, tried to set the mark in the San Antonio Grand Prix and in that competition he set the mark three times, he beat Olympic finalists that day,” he recalls.
Mexico had had as its last semifinalist Juan Jose Veloz in Athens 2004 in the 200m butterfly. And two individual finishes among the top 16 had not been seen since Moscow 1980 when Miguel Santiesteban participated in the 100m breaststroke (12), Isabel Reuss in the 100m freestyle (11) and Teresa Rivera in the 100m backstroke (9).
